tion--that was all there was to it.
They were no more to each other than strangers. He had done his
utmost, and she was as far away from him as ever; that made an end of
hope; he might as well give it up. At that moment there was nothing he
would have liked better. What with the care and perplexity he had
endured over women, cows, and hens, he was more than ready to wash
his hands of the entire lot.

But Steve was unaccustomed to following inclination when duty pointed
in another direction, so although he was apparently doing that now,
yet he had no other thought than of returning to his post by-and-by.

He walked on in an aimless sort of fashion, merely because he did not
know what else to do just then, and soon found himself near the
cottage whose glorified windows attracted him on his tramp some time
ago. It was dull enough now, for the departing sunlight streamed in
another direction, leaving the little house in shadow. Steve would
have passed it without a thought had not a woman's cry caught his
ear--a bitter, wailing cry, on which came words as bitter:

"Oh, I'm sick of it all! Would God that I were dead!"

Without meaning to intrude on private grief, Steve stood stock-still.
There was something so horrible in the contrast between a cry of such
lawless despair and the idea of the contentment and happiness for
which that little house should stand that it fairly paralyzed the
man's steps, just as the motion of the heart is arrested by a shock.

The cottage stood on the edge of the woods. Just now these were bare
and gaunt, and the steep-sided ravine to the left seemed to-day a
barren crack in a gloomy landscape.

It was all of it unbearable, unendurable. Anything was better than
this, and Steve turned with relief in the direction of a familiar
train whistle, hurried to the station, and soon was speeding toward
his former bachelor quarters.

How desolate the old building looked when he reached it! The sun had
sunk below the tall chimney tops, and the narrow street lay in gloomy
shadow. Nothing daunted, however, Steve entered, and forgetful of the
custom of the building, he stepped to the elevator shaft. It was dark,
but looking far up he thought he could discern a faint glimmer of the
sunset. Some lines he once read came to him:

"The emptying tide of life has drained the iron channel dry;
Strange winds from the forgotten day
Draw down, and dream, and sigh:"

They were passing and repassing h